[Fot] Lucas 2-speed windscreen wiper switch

[BillDentin at aol.com]

In a message dated 04/03/2008 6:57:23 PM Central Standard Time, Billb at bnj.com 
writes:


> Lucas was way ahead of their time in electronics. Diane's car has a rain 
> detection system that automatically turns the wipers on when the windscreen 
> gets wet, and turns them off when it's dry. Lucas had this at least forty years 
> ago, except it worked the other way around. 

Amici...

The current (May) issue of Triumph World has an interesting article by Paul 
Richardson telling about Jack Bough, who apparently was with Lucas in general, 
and their competition department in particular for many, many years.  He often 
had occasion to work with Paul's dad Ken (with Triumph and the V16 BRM).  The 
article suggests the title 'Prince of Darkness' was originally assigned to 
Bough and other Lucas reps the result of a clitch in the mid-1950s involving 
Triumph Speed Twin and Bonneville motorcycles.  Paul says because a myriad of 
electrical add ons were coming into vogue at the time, Lucas designed a pancake 
alternator whereby the winding housing was bolted to the chaincase and the 
magnetic rotor was bolted to the end of the crankshaft (running at engine speed).  
It worked fine in England and Europe, where there were relatively few long 
straight roads, but not here in the USA on our long interstate highways.  Over 
here headlight bulbs would consistently blow because of excessive voltage.  
There was no immediate cure, and bikers here were taping flashlights to the 
handlebars.  Hence the 'Prince of Darkness' moniker for our friends at Lucas.

Nobody enjoys a joke more than I do, and Prince of Darkness and other Lucas 
humor can be a lot of fun.  But I can remember being at more than one Triumph 
event where a Lucas representative was a guest speaker, and the 'fun' got out 
of hand.  We were not kind to our guests.  Lucas has, in fact, been on the 
cutting edge with many new electrical ideas, particularly in aircraft and space 
efforts.

It's been my experience that if you can just keep the smoke inside the wires, 
everything works fine.

Bill Dentinger
  


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